The Circulating Endotoxin Levels And Influences Of Exercise On It In Korean Obese Women

Objective: Obesity is pandemic and has high cardiovascular risk. Metabolic endotoxemia (ME) is thought to be involved in underlying molecular mechanism. ME triggers toll-like receptor 4-mediated inflammatory adipokines and leads to a chronic inflammatory status, which results in CV risk increase. Exercise is the best nonpharmacological treatment to improve prognosis for obesity. In this study, we examined the circulating endotoxin levels in Korean obese women and investigated effects of exercise on it. Design and method: Women (n = 20) with BMI 25 kg/m2 or greater were included and participated in a resistance training exercise (with an intensity of 60–80% of their maximum heart rate, a frequency at least three days per week and duration of 30 minutes) for 12-weeks. After 0 (baseline) and 12 weeks, tests including anthropometric measurements, fasting and postprandial blood samples were conducted in all participants. Results: The fasting circulating endotoxin was 1.45 ± 0.11 EU/mL. Ingestion of a high calorie meal lead to a peak level after 2 hours and a significant rise over the 4 hours in endotoxin (1.78 ± 0.15 EU/mL for 2 hour; 1.75 ± 0.14 EU/mL for 4 hour, p < 0.05 vs. for 0 hour). After 12 weeks, BMI, Hip circumference, total cholesterol at fasting, postprandial 2 and 4 hour were decreased significantly. Although the circulating endotoxin level showed reduction at fasting state, they were not significant (1.45 ± 0.11 at 0 week vs. 1.27 ± 0.08 EU/mL at 12 weeks, p = 0.098). The serum glucose and endotoxin level at postprandial 2 hour were significantly declined in similar pattern (117.7 ± 6.4 at 0 week vs. 100.7 ± 5.1 mg/dL for glucose; 1.78 ± 0.15 at 0 week vs. 1.48 ± 0.06 EU/mL at 12 weeks for endotoxin, p < 0.05). Conclusions: Our data reports the circulating endotoxin levels in Korean obese women for the first time. Also, we suggest that exercise exerts beneficial effects on the endotoxin and is associated with better prognosis in obese women who follow regular exercise.